Bid to turn ill-fated pub back to home

A closed Herefordshire country pub could turned into a home after a previous bid to revive it failed.

The Temeside Inn, Little Hereford on the A456 between Tenbury and Ludlow, opened in 1976, in a building dating from a century earlier. It was forced to shut in 2020 following flood damage from the river Teme which runs alongside it.

Owner John Leonard applied a year ago to build 12 “glamping lodges” to the rear of the building, which he said would “secure its long-term future as a viable local pub”.

But planners rejected this due to the perceived flood risk to the lodges, and also the pollution they could cause to enter the protected river.

Now Mr Leonard has applied for permission (number 243011) to turn the inn into a four-bedroom house, “for occupation by a local family”.

This would require “minimal” changes to the building, though most of the public car park to its south would be taken up.

Ordinarily, planning permission to turn a pub into a house can only be granted if it can be clearly shown the pub business is no longer viable.

The Temeside shows “a documented series of business failures by successive tenants, the inability to secure insurance cover for flood risk and public liability insurance at commercial rates, compounded by the national trend of public house closures and the recent planning refusal”, Mr Leonard’s application says.

“There is no prospect whatsoever that the necessary significant financial investment required to return the pub to a trading business will ever be forthcoming,” it adds. “Such investment would be sheer folly.”

The claims are supported by an accompanying viability report, which says the Temeside compares unfavourably with other pub properties on the market, and concludes: “The only realistic positioning is for an alternative default use that in this case would be residential.”

Comments on the application can be made until February 12.